Dr. Robert Porter Email: rporter@vcccd.edu (but please use the internal Blackboard ESRM V03 (72615) email to communicate unless you cannot access it)
Political Science V12 (70123) ONLINE HOMEPAGE: http://vcccd.blackboard.com
Username and Password are the same as you use for WebSTAR (Username must be your 900#)
Office Hours: MWF 9:30-11:15
Distance Education Coordinator: Heather Untalan (huntalan@vcccd.edu)
FALL 2007
Office: LRC-342 Office Phone: 805-654-6400 Ext. 2471
Ventura College Home Page: www.venturacollege.edu
Course Overview:
This class is designed to introduce students to the field of environmental policy and natural resource management. Models of public policy will be used to analyze environmental issues, including water policy, air pollution, public lands, waste and toxics, energy, endangered species, global commons, population, and sustainability. These environmental policy issues will be examined from the local, state, national, as well as global levels. A case study of the American Southwest, as well as local case studies from Ventura County, will be included as part of the course.
ORIENTATION: Wednesday, August 22 from 6:30pm to 7:15pm in Library/LRC Building First Floor BEACH Computer Lab
Core Competencies:
Read, retain, and apply published ideas.
Write clearly and accurately.
Evaluate own beliefs, biases, and assumptions.
Demonstrate knowledge of current events and social issues.
Work effectively as a leader or as part of a team in group settings.
Student Learning Outcomes:
Understand the history, participants, and major topics of environmental policymaking.
Analyze the various stages and concepts of policymaking as they pertain to environmental policy.
Comprehend the global dimensions of environmental policy.
Appraise various approaches to solving environmental problems.
Assess how natural resources are managed at the global, national, state, and local levels.
Logging in and Passwords: Blackboard
To log into Blackboard, go to http://vcccd.blackboard.com. Your username will be the 900# number you use for WebStar and your password will be the same password you use for WebStar.
Email Communication:
Please use the internal Blackboard email to communicate any questions or concerns you have about the course, not the email address at the top of this syllabus. When sending email, please be very specific. For example, if you want help with a CH 4 quiz, specify which quiz as you may have more than one. If you are having a problem with your computer, specify exactly what is happening, etc. The more specific you are, the faster I can help you or have our distance education coordinator help you.
Working in the Blackboard Environment:
Do not use the back and forward arrow buttons in Blackboard system. If you have questions about any features of Blackboard, go to the student discussion board titled “Questions/Concerns about class” under the discussion link. Type in your question there and another student or I will answer it.
Student Discussion Board: “Questions/Concerns About Class”:
Before you email me with any question about the class, please ask your question in the “Questions/Concerns About Class” link in the “Discussion” area. This is a place where students can answer each others' questions. I will monitor this discussion board and get to any questions that are not answered. If you have a more personal question and would not like other students to see your question, then email me through the Blackboard internal email system.
Grading System:
Weekly Assessments (Quizzes): 20 %
Short Writing Assignments: 15%
Research Paper: 25%
Midterm: 20%
Final Exam: 20%
Weekly Assessments (Quizzes):
To access your weekly assessments, click on “assessments” on your homepage.You will see a list of assessments called CH 1 Vaughn Quiz, etc..
For all these quizzes, you will have 30 minutes to take the assessment and you can take the quiz twice. You will receive the average of the two grades. The questions are randomized each time you take the quiz, so you may get a different set the second time you take the quiz, although there should be some repeated questions. If you only take the quiz once, you will receive that grade. These assessments are due each Sunday at midnight. Grades are released immediately for these so you can check how you are doing under “my grades.” Each of these assessments will be worth up to 100%. You can calculate your grade from these by adding up your quiz scores (available in “my grades”) and dividing by the number of quizzes you've taken so far.
Weekly Writing Assignments:
Each week you are required to write a short 1-2 paragraph summary and personal comment of the chapters you are reading for that week in Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang. You will write these under “assignments” on your “course tools”. Click on the week you are working on and there will be a text box for you to write in. These are graded as follows: You can earn 100 points total and I will randomly grade five of these during the semester. Each of these five will be worth up to 20 points. This will make up 15% of your overall grade.
Midterm and Final:
The midterm and final will be based on multiple choice questions from the Vaughn, Environmental Politics text and some essays from Edward Abbey’s book. You will be able to take these exams from anywhere you like but they are assigned on specific days.
Research Paper:
You will be required to join a group of fellow students to focus on one project. The choices are (1) the removal of the Matilija Dam and the Ventura Watershed, (2) the Santa Clara River watershed, (3) the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources zoning laws, or (4) the Sespe River/Wilderness area. The groups are for brainstorming, discussing, sharing resources, etc. For the paper, pretend you are writing a ten-page background memo for your boss at an environmental agency. Try and bring in any concepts or themes related to the public policy models discussed in the Environmental Politics text, such as problem identification and agenda setting, policy formulation, policy adoption, policy evaluation, incrementalism, multiple advocacy, focusing events, fragmentation of responsibility, jurisdictional overlap, etc. In your paper, you should address the following:
Describe the history of policies related to the topic.
Who have been and currently are the key participants in debates about the issue?
What role have different governmental agencies –local, state, and federal-- played in the process?
One good place to begin to get information about these topics is through local newspapers. The Ventura Star has an archive available online. I suggest that you get started soon and help each other out with sources. You might also want to interview some of the key actors, as they may have lots of information for you as well. I suggest that you post any url addresses for the group that contain good sources. If you are doing the Sespe River/Wilderness area project, I suggest that you get started with Brad Monsma’s The Sespe Wild and go from there.
The paper should be ten pages (double-spaced and typed) and is due Monday, December 3rd. To turn in your paper, go to “assignments,” click on “research paper” and add the paper as an attachment. To make sure there are no formatting problems, please attach the paper as a WORD document (.doc).
Extra Credit Project 1:
For extra credit, you will have the opportunity to volunteer for an environmental agency or organization related to one of these four projects. You will be expected to volunteer for 10-20 hours during the semester and you will add another five pages to your research paper describing your experience and relating it to your paper. The extra credit project is worth up to 100 points or a whole grade. If you are interested in this extra credit project, you need to let me know during the first few weeks of the class so I can help connect you with the appropriate agency or organization.
Extra Credit Project 2:
There will be multiple events on campus related to Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang at Ventura College as well as other events at CSUCI and Moorpark College related to the theme of the environment. These three campuses are participating in a collaborative project focused on civic engagement and the environment for the 2007-2008 year. A key component of this is the one-book, one campus theme. Each of these campuses is reading a book oriented around the environment with accompanying activities. These will all be collected on an online calendar and made available to you. You can earn 10 points of extra credit for each of these events that you attend and write a short summary for. Most of the events at Ventura College will take place in October. CSUCI is reading Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, and he will be offering a public lecture at CSUCI this semester. I’ll let you know that dates/times as they become available. You only need to write a short 1-2 paragraph summary of the event. You will do this in a text box titled “Extra Credit” within the blackboard environment.
Required Books:
Jacqueline Vaughn, Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions. Fifth Edition (Thomson/Wadsworth: 2008)
Bradley John Monsma, The Sespe Wild: Southern California's Last Free River. (University of Nevada, Reno Press: 2004)
Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang. (Harper-Collins Publishers: 2000)
Schedule of Readings and Assignments:
Week 1: ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK Aug 20 – Aug 26
Read: Introduction and CH 1 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: Introduction,
Prologue, and P.S. About the Author in The Monkey Wrench
Gang
Week 1-2 Assignments due:
Sunday, September 2nd
at midnight.
Week 2: KEY PLAYERS IN ENVIRONMENTAL DEBATES Aug 27 – September 2
Read: CH 2 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: CH 1-2 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 1-2 Assignments due: Sunday, September 2nd at midnight.
Week 3: THE POLITICAL PROCESS September 3 – September 9
Read: CH 3 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: CH 3-4 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 3 Assignments due: Sunday, September 9th at midnight.
Week 4: THE PUBLIC LANDS DEBATE September 10 – September 16
Read: CH 4 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: CH 5-6 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 4 Assignments due: Sunday, September 16th at midnight.
Week 5: WASTE AND TOXICS September 17 – September 23
Read: CH 5 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: CH 7-8 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 5 Assignments due: Sunday, September 23rd at midnight.
Week 6: THE POLITICS OF ENERGY September 24 – September 30
Read: CH 6 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: CH 9-10 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 6 Assignments due: Sunday, Sunday September 30th at midnight.
Week 7: THE POLITICS OF WATER October 1 – October 7
Read: CH 7 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: CH 11-12 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 7 Assignments due: Sunday, October 7th at midnight.
Week 8: AIR POLUTION AND POLICY October 8– October 14
Read: CH 8 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: CH 13-14 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 8 Assignments due: Friday, October 12th at midnight. (***Note this date is not Sunday as usual.)
**MIDTERM: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14th Location: From a computer anywhere.
Week 9: ENDANGERED SPECIES AND BIODIVERSITY October 15 – October 21
Read: CH 9 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: CH 15-16 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 9 Assignments due: Sunday, October 21 at midnight.
Week 10: THE GLOBAL COMMONS October 22 – October 28
Read: CH 10 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: CH 17-18 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 10 Assignments due: Sunday, October 28th at midnight.
Week 11: POPULATION AND SUSTAINABILITY October 29 – November 4
Read: CH 11 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: CH 19-20 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 11 Assignments due: Sunday, November 4th at midnight.
Week 12: EMERGING ISSUES IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY Nov. 5 – Nov. 11
Read: CH 12 Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions.
Read: CH 21-22 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 12 Assignments due: Sunday, November 11th at midnight.
Week 13: SESPE RIVER CASE STUDY November 12– November 18
Read: CH 1-2 The Sespe Wild: Southern California's Last Free River.
Read: CH 23-24 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 13 Assignments due: Sunday, November 18th at midnight.
Week 14: SESPE RIVER CASE STUDY November 19 – November 25
Read: CH 3-4 The Sespe Wild: Southern California's Last Free River.
Read: CH 25-26 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 14 Assignments due: Sunday, November 25th at midnight.
Week 15: SESPE RIVER CASE STUDY November 26 – December 2
Read: CH 5-6 The Sespe Wild: Southern California's Last Free River.
Read: CH 27-28 in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 15 Assignments due: Sunday, December 2nd at midnight.
***RESEARCH PAPER DUE: MONDAY, DECEMBER 3***
Week 16: SESPE RIVER CASE STUDY December 3 – December 9
Read: CH 7-9 The Sespe Wild: Southern California's Last Free River.
Read: CH 27-28, Epilogue and P.S. About the Book & Desert Anarchist in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Week 16 Assignments due: Sunday, December 9th at midnight.
Week 17: FINAL EXAM: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12th Location: From a computer anywhere.
Last updated by Bob Porter on August 24, 2007
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